BetterHelp Review: How It Won Over A Skeptic (Plus My Tips)

As mentioned above, I’ve experienced therapy as both a client and a provider. After I received my Master’s in Social Work, I spent six years making a living as a clinical social worker. I never quite accrued enough supervised hours to get my license, so I worked under the guidance of a licensed supervisor at the sites where I provided therapy. In various settings, I provided individual and group therapy, crisis intervention, diagnosis and assessment. Over time, I learned what worked and what didn’t work for a range of different clients.

I’ve also learned about what works in therapy and what doesn’t from the perspective of a client. I had my first formal experience as a therapy client from 2015 to 2016, when a Jungian therapist helped me get through a period of major career and general life transition. I attended traditional therapy sessions in her beautiful downtown office full of mid-century furniture and antique rugs. The work I did with her helped me better understand myself, release unhealthy relationship patterns, and become more confident, creative, and expressive.

I know from having been on both sides of the therapy room that the subtleties of interacting in the moment are what make therapy work. A good therapist doesn’t just note down what you tell them but also pays attention to how you tell them. Facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice can reveal where you’re feeling tensions or don’t completely believe your own story. Over time, as you build trust with your therapist, you share more with them, entering into deeper and deeper realms of catharsis.

Therapists are more than just professional problem-solvers. They are artisans who use the raw materials of your relationship to build a healing connection with you. They’re detectives, too, using the clues you give them to get beyond your cover story and to the deeper truths you need to discover to grow as a person and improve your life. They need to do more than just give nuggets of advice to do their jobs well.

If you’re an older millennial like me, you grew up at the same time as the internet and the tech industry. You remember the Wild West days when the internet hadn’t yet been taken over by corporations.  You remember being able to log on without having to navigate a hidden temple’s worth of tricky ad traps and pop-ups.

The phrase “dot-com bubble” sits somewhere in your brain next to mental images of Bill Clinton, Tupac, and Beavis and Butt-Head. If someone mentions a 56k modem, you recall the sound immediately. You remember when Google made a name for themselves with the simple motto, “Don’t be evil,” and what it was like before they failed to live up to that motto.

It’s been a long time since the tech industry took on a cynical sheen. We’ve learned that when people see dollar signs in something they can do on the internet, there’s usually a catch. I figured that BetterHelp wasn’t any different. They seemed to be another Silicon Valley startup designed to capitalize on a legitimate service by “disrupting” it—the Lyft or Uber of therapy—and that didn’t give me a whole lot of hope that what they were doing was legit.

As far as I could tell, BetterHelp’s approach to “disrupting” therapy seemed to be removing the therapy part altogether by replacing live sessions with messaging. Exchanging messages with another person, no matter what their credentials are, removes too much of what is essential in the relationship between therapist and client. If that was what BetterHelp was offering, there would be no comparison between it and seeing a therapist for a live in-office session. I took the plunge and signed up expecting to experience something that didn’t quite measure up.

It took a little work for me to find my therapist on BetterHelp (more on that later), but once I did, things escalated quickly. It became apparent she was serious about using the BetterHelp platform to deliver top-quality therapy. The genuine care and connection I felt when I worked with her quickly eroded my skepticism. I was having a relationship with a real-life therapist, not BetterHelp as a company.

My therapist and I used the messaging feature to share and discuss my history and to explore some of my issues and goals, but it was clear we would be using it to support the work we’d do in live sessions, not as an alternative to them. Right away, we started scheduling one live session every week.

Most traditional therapists provide their clients with one “therapy hour” (about 50 minutes) a week. If you get an hour-long video session every week on BetterHelp like I did, what you’re receiving is only subtly different from traditional therapy.

Online therapy sessions can be affected by issues like lag, dips in video quality, or background distractions like naughty pets or ringing doorbells, but your therapist can still see and respond to you in real-time like they would in an office setting.

Not only has online therapy felt authentic, I think it’s actually been a little more effective than my first round of therapy was. One reason is that each round of therapy builds upon the previous round. Another reason is that I’ve clicked so much with my therapist and the tools she uses.

I was surprised when my therapist suggested that I try eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR). Not only do I not have a history of “big-T Traumas,” as she put it, I also didn’t know how that method would translate online. But my therapist believed that some of what was keeping me stuck was “little-t traumas” that I’d never fully processed, and she knew how to make EMDR work over a video connection by using tapping instead of eye movement.

Well, it worked, as did the other methods and exercises we tried. The strength of our connection was evident in how well my therapist’s skills and expertise matched my needs as a client.

That said, therapeutic method isn’t as important as the quality of the relationship you have with your therapist and your level of motivation as a client. You have to feel inspired by the work you’re doing and want to change enough to continue the work after the session is over.

In other words, the more you apply what you’re learning, the more effective therapy will be for you. This is no less true of offline therapy, but it’s even easier to be passive and disengaged in online therapy. As good as my therapist is, and as good a match as she’s been for me, I wouldn’t have gotten what I’ve gotten out of BetterHelp if I hadn’t been motivated to work as hard as I did.

Whether BetterHelp is affordable depends on your circumstances. First, it’s important to know that you can’t use insurance to cover therapy on BetterHelp. If you can find therapists near you who accept your insurance, chances are pretty good that co-pays for insurance-covered therapy will cost less than paying for online therapy out of your own pocket. However, if you have to (or prefer to) pay out of pocket, it may cost less to use BetterHelp than it would cost to see a therapist in person, depending on the standard hourly rates for therapy where you live.

One of the things I knew I could use some help with at the time I signed up for BetterHelp was figuring out how to get out of survival mode and how to maximize my career and work potential. I was having trouble finding the inspiration or drive to level up my career or my life in general. I was barely scraping by as a writer, which meant I couldn’t afford typical in-person therapy rates. However, at the time I signed up for BetterHelp, the total monthly subscription cost was less than what therapists charge for four monthly sessions where I live. This made it the more affordable option for me.

My savings grew further when I found out I could get financial aid. Based on my income, I qualified for a significant discount. I breathed a sigh of relief when I got the discount, as it meant I could budget for a longer term of therapy than I initially thought I could afford.

My positive experience on BetterHelp was rooted in the fact that my therapist provided me with weekly video sessions, which are the closest you can get to the traditional therapy experience online and which give you the most “bang for your buck.” I strongly recommend taking the time to find a therapist who’s not only a good match for you, but who offers the services and schedule that meet your needs as a client.

If the thought of doing a bunch of research and trying to figure out your own best match overwhelms you, don’t let that stop you from getting the most out of BetterHelp—you can always let the site match you and change therapists later if you need to. But whether you do the choosing upfront or use a process of trial and error, you’re much more likely to have a good experience if you put in the effort to get the best match.

In fact, the most frustrating part of my experience with BetterHelp was how difficult it was to get matched with my therapist. The first therapist the site selected didn’t match several of the preferences I’d indicated in my sign-up questionnaire. Then, when I clicked on “Change Therapist,” many of the therapists I’d noted as potential matches in my initial research no longer showed up as options. I couldn’t find them even after refreshing the page dozens of times or going back to the zip code search where I initially found them. I was finally able to get matched with my therapist by e-mailing BetterHelp’s customer service and requesting her specifically.

Ultimately, while I liked many aspects of the platform, including the streamlined interface and helpful reminder messages, the excellent experience I had on BetterHelp was almost completely due to how much I clicked with my therapist and how well I worked with her. For this reason, I recommend that you also take the time to specifically choose your therapist on BetterHelp.

BetterHelp is an online therapy platform that offers a fast, simple, and accessible way to start working with a therapist.

If you get weekly video sessions from your BetterHelp therapist, the differences between your online therapy experience and traditional in-office therapy should be subtle, not definitive. And if commuting to a therapist’s office is difficult or impossible for you, online therapy can give you something close to the in-office experience without the commute.

The more self-motivated and capable of doing your own legwork you are, the better experience you’re likely to have with BetterHelp. Ultimately, BetterHelp is only as good as the therapists who work for them, and the quality of your therapy will hinge on how good your therapist is and how good of a match they are for you. That will depend on how much effort you put into finding the right therapist. Your success in working with your therapist will also reflect how motivated you are to do the work both during and after your sessions.

I’d have missed so much if I hadn’t tried BetterHelp when I did. I continue to be grateful for the circumstances that led to me signing up for BetterHelp and meeting my therapist on their platform.

It is my hope that other people can use the BetterHelp platform to have their own profoundly healing experiences in therapy.